in egypt, crowds in cairo and alexandria waved palestinian flags and chanted anti-israeli slogans. thousands of people also turned out in yemen to denounce the israeli offensive. and in turkey, a one-time israeli ally, people in istanbul called for the death of the jewish state. >> brown: and for more on the conflict, we are joined by hisham melham, washington bureau chief for al- arabiya; and dan schueftan is director of national security studies center at the university of haifa. gentlemen, one thing i think a lot of people, myself included are wondering how did this flare-up seemingly so quickly. dan schueftan. >> well, since hamas took over we had for a while a thousand rockets per year, then came israeli escalation and-- and it went down to a small number of rockets every year, last year again we came to about a thousand rockets against israel. and this intensified in recent weeks to the point where israel had to take action. israel was saying for about two weeks, i mean people here were dealing with the elections and other things. but it was saying it must lead to a point whe